Anthony Fleg and The Running Medicine story

Hi, this is Paul Zelizer and welcome to the AwarePreneurs podcast. On this show we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help you increase your positive impact, your profitability and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app. It helps more people learn how to have positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much. Today I am thrilled to introduce you to Anthony Clegg and our topic is Building Community through Movement.

The Running Medicine Story. Anthony Flegg is a family medicine physician at unm, the University of New Mexico in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. Originally from Baltimore, Anthony grounds his healing work in undoing racism, health equity movement as medicine, and with a focus on strengths and holistic health. He co founded the Native Health Initiative, NHI and its Running Medicine program, a unique approach to wellness through movement. He is a proud father of four children, an avid runner, and is about to release his second book, Writing to Heal. The Journey Continues and full disclosure, Anthony and I went on a seven mile run this morning to celebrate a mutual friend's birthday and I had the awesome honor of going to a running medicine gathering track workout day about a week and a half ago. So have some experience of how this community feels on the ground and I will tell you it is amazing. Anthony, welcome to the show.

I am so glad to be part of the wearpreneurs legacy. Thanks Paul. I'd rather be running with you but.

Well, that was fun too, but you know, it's not an either or. We're doing both in one day. A run and a podcast interview. How awesome is that? Yeah.

Yep.

So Anthony, before we get into the specifics of the Running Medicine program and how it started and why it started, this idea of movement and healing in a holistic health way, this has been a passion of yours for a long time. How did that thread get started in your life?

I'm a family medicine doctor and so I'm constantly seeing patients that don't move enough and those who have significant health issues because of a variety of things. But one of those that's sort of consistent is not moving enough, not having a lifestyle that's around that. And so I think it somewhat, Paula, comes from just my desire to do the best medicine and you know, prescribe movement, prescribe things that are beyond pills and, and sort of the medical solutions which often aren't really solutions at all. So I think my own life. I find that on. On many levels. And it's not even though running is my. My mode of choice, but biking, hiking, Zumba, yoga, hiit workouts, there's just some real intangibles that come with movement that allow us to center, to settle, to be with ourselves, to slow down all things that.

And actually really important, I think is connecting with other people, creating. Creating community. And so that's. That's sort of my backdrop to, you know, then having the sort of idea pop in my heart and mind to really more of like a vision of, you know, what I saw in that moment to be a community that we would call running medicine. And that was 10 years ago. So it's been a fun journey.

And this theme of movement and how good it is for humans and how it is an equalizer in terms of health equity. This has been going on for a while. Somewhere along the way you got particularly interested. You co founded the Native Health Initiative. Tell us a little bit about like, what was the connection with Native communities?

The connection. I was a medical student in North Carolina who realized we weren't really hearing at all about the Native communities that were very much present. That state has the largest indigenous population east of the Mississippi River. And here are a bunch of doctors to be that aren't really given any knowledge or understanding of the native patients they are going to see. It's very common in North Carolina for someone who identifies from a tribe to be misclassified as Hispanic, black, white, you know, anything but what they actually are. So the Native Health Initiative, from a sort of social entrepreneur standpoint, was and is unique in that it was grounded in love as its funding source, love as its moral, you know, foundation. And it took a very different approach than sort of building a business or, or a nonprofit, one grant at a time. In fact, it took really more of a.

If we have people that are aligned in heart and mind in the same room willing to put energy and sweat into making this happen, we can do this. We can really show the world that we can do quality work, amazing work, that money is not the. The center of it and actually is almost, you know, not needed. What that means, just for your listeners, is a nonprofit that over its first 10 years of life did a. A full nonprofit's worth of work on about $5,000 of actual cash. There's occasionally times we needed money for food or money to reimburse gas, but, you know, really people and love that came from these people was what drives and what drove that work. It's grown as an organization. It's now about to hit 20 years old here this, this upcoming month, actually.

And so it's, it's, it's sort of in its teenage years and is, you know, trying to still keep that foundation and balance it with. But yeah, we'd love to be able to pay people so they don't have to find, you know, a job at a fast food restaurant because they're doing their work out of what we call loving service for free, for any time. But it's a different model, definitely.

And when I was there the other Tuesday night, it was a track workout which people were apologizing that it was a small group. There were 60 people there on a Tuesday night, I have to guess from 7 or 8 to 70 or 80. Right? Very amazing. Everybody was moving, some very quickly, some were walking. But it was remarkable. So 20 years in, on an off night where people are apologizing, there were 60 people there. It was amazing. It really, you built something that has touched a lot of lives.

So this idea. So it started with a Native Health initiative and more specifically this episode. The subtitle is the Running Medicine Story. Somewhere along the line, this idea of running as medicine, particularly in Native communities, those things kind of coalesced into an idea. Tell us about what was that formation like and what was happening in your mind, heart, soul, as you were in this formation process.

I'm going to tell the story, my friend, in a way that I hope, again, your listeners will relate to. And particularly the first part of the story is sort of someone who's out there who's just frustrated and hasn't quite put all the pieces together. So the Native Health initiative is about 10 years old at the time. I'm in a really frustrated moment. I have sort of the way I would verbalize what I was feeling at the moment in December 2015 was I really feel like I'm meant to do some bigger work around building community through movement. Other than, yes, preaching it to my patients and trying to practice what I preach, I haven't found that sort of place. And so I think a lot of social entrepreneurs find themselves with passion, but they haven't figured out the outlet. They haven't quite put all the puzzle pieces together.

And I also would say that probably a lot of our best work comes out of that sort of low place from a. I'm not a mountain expert, but my sense is that every valley has to have two mountain peaks on either side of it. So I was in one of those valleys and I just couldn't and it's often hard for us to see the valley and excuse me, to see the mountain peak that might be closer than we think just requires us to sor of put one foot in front of another. To really use an outdoors hiking, running sort of analogy. So we, about a month after that vision is suddenly there. I share with my family, I think we're going to do this. It's going to be intergenerational. It's going to be very low cost.

We're going to find some heart funding. We're going to keep it with the NHI love grounds. All of our work we do not need to spend, nor do we want to spend in our initial planning this out and launching it. We don't want to spend any money fundraising. And so that again, I share that with your listeners. What we wanted to do is we wanted to get a group of people that all believed that this was something our community could really benefit from. I'll speak in a moment about like the specific things around how we're going to decisions around funding. But we did, we did not spend any time looking for grants.

We didn't waste really time. We wanted to sort of launch the concept and then just sort of, I guess you'd say we, we were riding this faith that good things would come. And again, this is in the context of an organization that runs on a few bucks per year and still is able to do, you know, really incredible work. So we sort of had this baseline of like, yeah, what we need is good people and we need to get an art, an artist to give us something that sort of in their mind is running medicine. Just as a quick sort of aside here, running in our native cultures in the Southwest, the tribes of the Southwest is really central. It's very, it's very much. If you said the term running medicine to any indigenous person in this part of the country, they would immediately understand, yeah, running connects us to creator, connects us to Mother Earth below. It allows us the chance to really get in touch with ourselves.

It's a way to disconnect from all of life and technology so that we can, can connect with ourselves. And one beautiful example of this is that when a Navajo young lady has her first menstruation, it's a sacred moment. She can now create life. And that four day ceremony that follows is called a kinnantha. And it's centered around running, running dressed traditionally, running each day farther than the day before. Sort of almost the way of, you'd say a traditional wisdom of like a training plan, you know, go A little bit further than, than you did before. But running is central to that ceremony. The young lady runs three times a day with her family behind her to support her.

And it's, it's being used. It's not, it's not in a kennel bell ceremony. Choose your physical activity of choice. Running is the central, you know, thing that ties that four days of, of welcoming her into womanhood, but also strengthening her. You know, it's understood that running is, is a difficult challenge and is going to help her leave, you know, the little girl behind and start to become a woman. So my health colleagues here, running medicine is. Oh yeah, you mean running like as opposed to sending people the pharmacy. And yes, I do mean that, but we also.

And the logo helps really depict something much different. A runner sort of holding a prayer feather. Running medicine as grounded in indigenous running traditions. Just a quick thing again for all the entrepreneurs that are again thinking so running medicine comes from a low place. A frustrated guy who doesn't quite know what he's doing and doesn't feel like he's making a difference. I think that's for social entrepreneurs always our bottom line. It's not as much the financial bottom line or at least one of the bottom lines. Then secondly, the sort of very intentional decision to say that where we want to put our energy to start this thing is not around capital in a monetary sense.

It's around human capital. It's around getting again, just a few people together, starting with a cramped living room conversation where we all talked out some of the things we would like to see in this. And then an elder said, you know, I get it. We want to sort of address the fact that even something as simple as running and walking can be cost prohibitive in the way that it's sort of offered to the world. But don't make it free. Don't make it free because people won't value free. So from day one, it was $15 a season. In year 10, it's $20 a season.

Just to give the listeners, you know, sort of a comparison. Many youth clubs just to run one child one season or about $300 a season. So yeah, we want people sort of to commit. And I think there is something important of committing even a couple dollars to something in, in what that means as opposed to being completely free. But we, we have people that, that do it for free. $20 gets you a couple hundred dollars, those sort of incentives. And therein is sort of the model that we're going to fund this on a web of partnerships and allies and groups that you know are really far ranging. But we're going to lose money on every person that joins, as I say.

And that's our model. But it's a model that works quite well.

Twenty years in, you're still going. So listeners, I strongly encourage you to check out the running medicine site. Go take a look at the logo and some of the language. When I was getting ready for this, I always like to think about appreciative inquiry. One of my consulting background is, is called appreciative inquiry. And the two questions there are what's going well and what do we want to do more of? And if you want to understand the running medicine story, I encourage you to go to the website with those questions and particularly take a look at the visual storytelling like the local. I think there's some things that are really clear that this organization feels different from the moment. You see it from a lot of other organizations.

So go check out the website. The link is in the show notes. So Anthony, so you got some people together. You're having these living room conversations like where did you start? You got the idea, but what were some of your first few events and who came?

Yes, the entrepreneur's dilemma. Okay, right.

I have my idea, but nobody knows about my idea.

Right, right, right. Is anyone going to show up on day one? So day one was March 12, 2016. I remember it like yesterday. We had, we had, we had tied in one of our youth programs in the non profit. So I guess that's the sneaky principle of go for some low lying fruit. We know at least 10 people have to be there because they're with our youth program that explores health careers. But 70 people showed up on day one.

Day one you had 70 people.

70 folks. Yeah. So that was, that was a sort of confirmation that this might be something. It was different in its approach, that it was everyone moves together, all speeds, walkers, runners. It was inclusive in every way that we could make it inclusive. It was not send your kids out to go onto the field and text in the car as a parent. It was no, we need the whole family to, to do this together, knowing that there will be some real magic and some real healing that can't come from just sort of the typical youth activity model where the parents disengage completely. You know, we.

One. One of my earliest sort of couple early memories was one family who were really big hoop dancers, which is a type of traditional dancing. So they were excited because running medicine was helping to build cardiovascular fitness, endurance. Another family who I Noticed had started to come much more regularly. And I just sort of checked in with them and they had a loss in the family and were really struggling and running medicine essentially was their self dosing of we need this right now, we need something positive, we need the movement, we need something that's going to sort of take our minds off of what we're going through. So 70 people show up, we collect a few dollars, within like a month, we actually order the shirts. You know again, when I say we had a zero dollar budget and we didn't care because we had the budget was love, the budget was good people. I mean that like we did.

We did not in probably a business school model of launching something. We did not have our ducks in a row, but in the way we thought of things. We had what was really important there and did not care that we had a zero dollar budget. I actually remember Paul, that at the very beginning when that thought came, I hadn't even really connected the dots that it should go under the nonprofit. But then that seemed sort of like a, you know, a no brainer. And I guess again thinking of how to make this story really useful for the audience, it would just be like who, who are the natural people and organizations maybe doing this work in our midst that it would just make sense for this to be aligned with in some way. Like I can imagine an organization for instance, that just has a group willing to, you know, let you use their nonprofit status until you sort of figure out if that's the direction you want to go. These are, you know, win win kind of things.

But at the very beginning, I hadn't even completely thought that this was going to be part of this organization that already existed. But yeah, it's kind of a wild thing, right to start this thing. 70 people show up and we have $0 in the bank and are feeling great because again, the 70 people tell us that's the funding source right there. So we literally had to cobble together $15 at a time before we could even a month into the project, you know, get, get people some nice shirts to wear. And the, the sense of pride I think of like when I remember that first day of we got shirts, you know, close your eyes, let's, let's unveil them. It, it tells me we had put the energy and the resources in the right place, that we did not try to wow people with fancy things and material items that, you know, I think are less important in, in the bigger scheme of social entrepreneurship. Sure, they get people the table sometimes they keep People engaged, they can create a sense of community. But I'm really glad that what we, what we did instead was community building, develop the ideas as you asked.

We just, we probably had three or four total meetings to hash out different things like the cost model and who, who. How are we going to keep all these people, ages 2 to 92, engaged and feeling? You know, you got to have, you know, sort of a game plan in terms of coaches and how this was all going to happen. So some of that is probably lost into the recesses of my mind, but I hope that gives just maybe a little picture of what those sort of initial brainstorming, the launch look like.

Thank you. And how would you describe if somebody was to use a little bit more of an analytical mind and they wanted to talk about outcomes or KPIs? Right, so. So now you're 20 years into the Native Health Initiative, about 10 years into running medicine. The organization's been going and it looks different now than it used to. I'm going to ask you about that in a second, but give us a sense like when you think about success and how you track success in light of the fact that it's a non traditional model that you've described. Love is the foundation, Love is the funding source, to use your word for. How do you track whether it's working, whether it's sustainable, whether you're meeting the mission and the goals that you all sitting in that living room talked over those three or four meetings?

It's a very good question. And there's a sort of another layer to it which is that many of our Native communities, Native American communities, are a bit turned off by anything that looks like research. They're skeptical at the very least because it has been used in ways that have not been for those communities best interest. You know, extracting data and things just for the purpose of someone like me, a physician, you know, writing a paper, but not doing it in a really honest, transparent way that is, for instance, shared with the community. So there's, there's that element as well. I did think with the team about the importance both of sort of showing that this model worked and countering that with the thing I just mentioned about people's hesitation toward collecting data and research. I absolutely believe you have to measure what you're trying to do. You have to have some rigor to that part of any startup, any entrepreneur effort, social or for profit.

You know, it doesn't, it doesn't. And both, of course coexist in many cases. But I think sometimes we we maybe think that, well, this is doing good for the world so I can be less rigorous about, you know, the outcomes. And what we ended up doing is we wrote a paper on sort of this culturally grounded running and walking program and we asked people, separated them into Native and non native identifying groups. How did this affect your physical health, your mental and emotional health, your spiritual and cultural health? And fourth, how did it affect your social connectedness? How your sense of belonging, this was pre pandemic, your sense of belonging in your, your community. And so what we didn't do is, you know, you Google with the help of AI ways to study a fitness program and you're going to see measure VO2 max, measure weight loss, better body fat, BMI. And so it's important again I'm going to be the teacher here again trying to make this most useful for the audience. It's important to not do the Google search and really say what is it that we're about and what is it that uniquely we're about? Let's make sure our measurement tool is more attuned to that.

And so you don't see many fitness programs running and walking programs that measure social connectedness or that measure spiritual cultural health. Again, we're hoping that by having running medicine there are some Native American families in an urban setting of Albuquerque, New Mexico that are actually learning about some traditional culture in ways that they did not, they weren't exposed to even though they're, they're Native American and hopefully in a way that makes them proud to be who they are. And you hear from grown adults how they were reconnecting to their traditional running traditions in their tribe through what running medicine was, was offering. Interestingly, the thing that increased the most of those four elements was social connectedness. So actually the, the thing and, and it was both for Native American and non Native American participants because our group is, it can't do love grounded work and say, well no, no Paul, not you, but yes, there's other, no, it's everyone included and social connectedness, again, something you would typically not measure, even think is important in our healthcare system. For instance, one on one interview with a doctor or a therapist or you know, there's not even a sense that the social part of our health is important. Native people get it. And I always just ask the question, if I have the best labs and my EKG looks great, but I'm lonely, can I really be in a good state of health? So it makes sense to me, but it's important that we measured sort of those elements that we knew were probably whether they come out to be the thing that increases the most.

We didn't know that, but we did know they were important aspects to our program that measuring just how much weight you lost wasn't going to capture. Really what this program is about. So beautiful.

I love that. And I'm somebody who pays a lot of attention. My original training is in community mental health. Was originally licensed as a counselor. I like to joke with my clients. I have a master's in human and I'm very attuned to. Are people joking around? Are they super intense? You go to some races, even though they supposedly have an equity or an impact focus, but it's like everybody's staring at their watch and nobody's looking at each. And this was the exact opposite of that.

People were jo. Like when it came time to actually we were doing a speed day. So when it came time to do the laps, the 400 meter run, like people were really giving it. They're all whatever there was. But while we were warming up on the other side, like there was so much conversation and joking and supporting so and so did great at a race and everybody was kind of lifting them up and cheering them on or so so's getting ready for their next race or whatever it was. It was. It was a. Not only was it a large group of 60 people, but the amount of interaction between folks who came with their families.

But also I came solo on that particular day and people were like, who are you and what are you doing here? And we're so glad you're here and do you like to run or you know, just. It was. It was an incredibly social group of humans and it was wonderful to be a part of. And it was very palpable that the way people were relating was not the way you would expect if you went to a typical, you know, let's run a 5K together meetup group. It. It had a very different feel than that. Yeah.

And. And all of that in a very organic ways is intentional, really simple. And you're right, most people, because of the sort of exclusivity of a lot of running and maybe larger fitness groups, they're going to go in the other direction. When you say come out with me to running medicine or a group that has running in its name because they don't think they belong to that. So how can we from day one, you know, create the atmosphere where the person who shows up with a cane, the person who's recovering from cancer, the person who hasn't walked a mile in 30 years are alongside youth that run a race and people training for marathons. And so, you know, to give the listeners just an example, the simplest is most indigenous ways really value the circle. And the circle communicates a belonging. It communicates that the whole everyone is an important link.

And so running medicine, celebrations, we don't call them practices, they're celebrations. We're celebrating life and taking a moment to breathe together, to just meditate on gratitude, to check in with one another. Starts with a big circle. We do our stretch. We go move for 30 to 40 minutes at all different speeds and distances. We come back, we form the circle again. A beautiful thing, Paul, I saw being. I'm not a master of human, but I, I do love seeing things happen.

And as I'm thinking about it is we, we. We just would say sort of. And we continue to say, you know, make sure there's no second rows. And then to watch even young kids, you know, the circles form. There's 40 people, but now 20 more people have shown up to watch the circle naturally embrace those people so that it truly is no second row. And it's not from a top down that, you know, the leaders have to say, please, let's open. No, people are doing it and they're making sure that no one feels like they're second row. That may seem minimal, but in a lot of ways in life, the people who show up and slink back into the shadows in the second rows, they're people that, that, you know, need that encouragement.

They might not, you know, in the setting of running medicine, they might not feel proud of their body. They might be traumatized in a lot of ways, and they just don't feel like they belong. So what that might mean to them, to be, you know, really sincerely welcomed into a certain. No, you're part of us. You're part of what we do. And it's going to be sort of hard to explain here, but we close the circle in a way that invokes traditional ceremony. And that is, in essence, as you saw everyone thanking every single person who was out there for their medicine. We don't just, well, it was good.

Have a great day. We are sort of a high five line that forms and you're telling every single. You're realizing or recognizing that, I didn't just do this by myself. I did this because of. And with these other. Every single person gave something today that let me get my medicine, as we say. So it's a different. It's a different way.

And again, that part of this conversation, I hope, helps your listeners who are just maybe at a point where they're a little afraid to jump into just something that does not look in any way like what the existing version of that is. As you pointed out really nicely in your firsthand experience, this does not in any way look like what a running and walking group normally looks like. From the price to the inclusivity to the faces to the three or four generations in a given family that might be out there together. It does not. And I'm encouraging your listeners to really have that leap of faith that that's why we create. That's why we're entrepreneurs. We create things that haven't yet. No one's put all those pieces together and not to limit ourselves by what we think and what we see is in the current reality.

Beautiful.

So in a moment I want to ask you, Anthony, about where do you think running medicine's going? I know there's been a leadership transition and I want to hear more about that sustainability over the years. And also what can other folks who are interested in health equity in their community? What might they learn from the running medicine story? Before we do that, I just want to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. If you got the chance to interview over 300 of the world's top social entrepreneurs and impact investors, you'd have to be pretty clueless not to learn something. Fortunately, I've been paying attention. Over the years, some clear patterns have emerged. Balancing profit and purpose isn't optional, it's a strategic advantage. Impact driven business models often break the mold and that's a good thing. Raising funds for climate and social ventures can be harder or easier.

It just depends on which investors you target. Marketing can be trickier in this space, but when it works, it builds deep trust. In my 18 plus years of work, I've supported more than 30,000 leaders and team members who are committed to creating changes through values based business. If you're looking to grow your impact venture or raise funding more strategically, I offer a 90 minute strategy session. It includes a customized intake process, a focused 90 minute call, three to seven clear action steps, and two weeks of follow up email support to help you implement those steps in your context. Use the link below to reach out about scheduling your strategy session. Welcome back everybody. I'm here with Anthony Clegg and we are talking about Building Community through Movement, the Running Medicine Story and in the first part of the show, Anthony, you gave us a great background and some of the embodied experience of what's it like to be at a running medicine circle a little bit more now of like, okay, 10 years in, how has the community developed? Right? So the first time you're like, I don't know, we think we're going to have 10 people because there's this youth group and they're going to probably come, so maybe we'll have them and us.

And you had 70 people. And I was like, whoa, to now, you know, when I was there on a Tuesday night, you have speed work and strength work and distance days and mobility days. Like, the programming is nuanced. You have a wide variety of people coming. Like, how is it different now in 2025 as we this in the end of May from where it was 10 years ago? And what have you learned about keeping a community going that's true to its roots? Staying with the love, staying with the community focus, but also letting it have more moving parts like a strength day and a speed day and a distance day. Right. There's, there's more happening now than there was in 2015. And how do you balance that simple values and community while also allowing the programming to develop and get more interesting?

As entrepreneurs, I think we're decent at having sort of flexibility and responsibility to those that we're serving, particularly health equity work and social justice work. That is the beauty of this podcast and what it's uplifting. So as one fun example, you know, a little blip known as Covid, the pandemic hits and suddenly in person gatherings aren't quite possible. Well, shoot, we can't, we can't show a screen and just have Anthony and others running in the screen. Okay, guys, let's pick it up. But no one's going to join or sign up for that thing. They already got things called treadmills and exercise bikes if, if you want that. So teaching yoga and teaching high intensity interval training known as HIIT or CrossFit workouts, became a part of what we were doing.

And for my own self, it was a way to connect with other human beings. But running medicine was offering that. We definitely were clear that we're not just going to shut down and wait for this thing to pass. Because we all need the movement and the connection, the community, more than ever. So those things have now become just ingrained part of we do yoga, we do hiit. We have actually days, Paul. This week we have a day that's called a fun day that from the beginning we said, you know, no community can really be a true community if they can't play together. So there's a day where we sort of jokingly say, you're not allowed to raise, run or walk.

Today we're playing games. We're gonna play ultimate Frisbee. We're gonna play this fun team building game. We're gonna, we have fun days that, that are a break from the, the norm. In a way. Maybe they're like our way of saying, let's not take ourselves too seriously. Let's, let's keep this fun, let's keep this playful. Let's make sure that, you know, we, we are doing more than just the play.

That is, you know, the weird, weird pleasure you and I get of running intervals around the track. You know, that, that is, that does build community. But being able to just put it down and say, yeah, at the end of the day, we're really more about you and you feeling a part of this community than we are about the whole running and walking thing, which is just what got you to sign up and, and come to the table, so to speak. I think, I think it's a, I think it's always a hard thing when you birth something to let it go. And I just felt a sense that it was time not to let it go in the sense that I don't care about it, don't attend, don't serve as sort of an advisor. But about two years ago, I did feel like it was time to let the nonprofit find someone else to run the program. And there's a term I'm just going to use here, founder syndrome, which is, you know, the difficulty that founders of initiatives, of organizations sometimes have in letting it go. And I think by becoming a founder syndrome is where it really becomes detrimental to the growth of that organization and that effort.

So with both the nonprofit that my wife and I co founded and then running medicine, which was sort of one of my babies within the organization, we, you know, I let it go and have watched it grow. There's, there's been for some years now, other sites beyond Albuquerque, sort of, you know, growing, growing list of partners. And I think one thing I do want to say about this being sort of a health equity effort more than a fitness program. The reason I think that is we always looked at running medicine as something that should be intertwined with other efforts toward healthier eating, more movement, safer streets. You know, so a lot of different intersection. We did not want to just create this very insular community that only looked at itself. And only now the circle needed to constantly expand to see how we were going to use our energy to contribute to our Larger community. So as an example would be pairing up with groups that are doing holding running events to raise awareness for missing and murdered indigenous women or raise awareness for other causes.

And running is just being used as a way to really do something greater that is a no brainer for our group to be a part of those to say how can we help? I'm going to say one other interesting thing here which is that I thought of how I was going to weave this into our wonderful conversation. But as a love grounded organization, what we bring often to the table is people power. We bring energy and we might, you know, open a conference or a run or something else with say a high energy stretching and get people laughing. But I often notice that when you look at that events, you know, flyer and listed partners, we're not there. And why are we not there? We're not there because unfortunately people have discounted all of the contributors like us that have given in people power and in all the energy. And really what we only sometimes focus on when we look at a who are we going to put as partners for this event are people that gave money. They might care the least about the event. It might be literally a tax write off to them.

But I think just the importance of in building a web of community around our social entrepreneurship to value the people and the volunteerism just as much as we value the group that gives us $10,000 and finding a way, you know, I will say it, it's a sort of a personal wow. We did all this to make this event, you know, successful and yet we're not listed as a partner because again partnership sponsorship is so often just at the end of the day who gave us money. And it really discounts a lot of people that are giving in very important ways to really to the success of your work.

I really appreciate you bringing that up, Anthony. I'm very actively working. We're two weeks away from a big event here in New Mexico called tech talks at Atomic 66 and we're very aware of this issue and have a very large group of partners and sponsors including folks who are giving human capital and doing other things for us. So I want to co sign what you're saying and literally was spending a bunch of time today, like how do you, how do you define that kind of human capital exchange when you're a partner for an event? Rather than just like well I told my sister Sally about it, you should put me on your. Like it's a little, a little harder to quantify but it's doable. So I'm happy to be a resource for anybody who's trying to figure that out but I co sign everything you're saying.

Yeah, it can really inadvertently I think close some of the doors to some of your best supporters and and just really ultimately reduces the contributions to at the end of the day. Did you give us cash?

Exactly.

I'm glad to hear you all are on the same page.

We're working hard at that. It's one of the, we're scrappy here in New Mexic. One of the things we learn how to do, I call it building things out of air. Like you literally start with nothing but an idea and some great relationships and before you know it you have running medicine or we're about to do an event, we think a thousand people are going to come. No advertising but just a few people said this what wants to happen. No big corporate sponsorships, just a bunch of people reaching out to their networks to put New Mexico on the map in a more robust way. And it's mostly the folks who been less, you know, in New Mexico terms, underrepresented founders. My friend Vicky, he's one of the co founders of Taqueria, which is Latinx.

Folks in technology and rubber ducks. Women in technology and blacks in tech, black community and technology and climate and I'm climate right now climate's a dirty word in America. We're not supposed to talk about climate tech, but I talk about climate tech, you know, whatever I talk about it. Yeah, so. So all of those types of folks are working to make technology careers accessible to folks who might not have thought they were viable for them because they thought they needed an advanced degree. And it turns out you don't, you don't even need a college degree. So we're trying to help underrepresented communities realize there's really good opportunities to make a living. And anyway we're building it out of air through human capital and lots of hours and it's fun to see it come together.

So anyway, a lot, a lot of.

Great parallels there really. Paul, I know it's been a little bit one sided conversation but it's why I was excited to talk today in a way what I would say how you're helping people to see that they belong in tech. Just for fun your viewers go Google running and you'll see a bunch of white people as the pictures you really have to look like about I, I counted one day it was about 200th down was the first person of color that I saw in what you know immediately comes up as people moving and running. And so yeah, we're, we're doing, we're doing very parallel work and even down to that, making something out of air.

You started smart. You can't see his face, folks. But as soon as I said that, Anthony had this big smile on it. Oh yeah, you, you talk about that too. So. So Anthony, I could hang out with you all day. I know you're super busy and our listeners are too. As we start to wind down, is there something you want to leave listeners with about what you've learned in this journey of the running medicine story as a community or there's something in the health equity movement that's happening and somebody who's.

That's their area and they're passionate about making a difference around health and particularly folks who are oftentimes left, you know, they're not the 200 white people who have come up when you Google running. Anything you want to share as we start to wind down that we haven't touched on yet, I'm going to share.

Of a partnership that I didn't go too much in depth today about how, how this business model, first of all, a bunch of crazies who have no money saying we're ready, let's go show up day one. And that in itself is probably confusing to a lot of people. It sounds like bad business to just be really honest. Granted, running and walking doesn't require a lot of infrastructure. You have open spaces and parks in any of our communities that you can make it happen. But there's a running shoe store who is a specialty running shoe store. For those who don't know, running shoes current day are probably in the 120 to $180 range for a new pair of shoes. And this store said, you know what, we see what you're doing, we appreciate what you're doing in this community.

You're not even necessarily serving the people that we know we're going to be having as customers. But we want to make sort of a partnership with you. We have these shoes that don't sell and that are sort of just sitting there and, and not doing anyone any good. What if we brought them out to running medicine, sold them for 20 bucks? Running medicine gets to count that as a big perk of you joining the the group and spending your 15 to $20 a season. You're already gonna maybe save $100 on a pair of shoes. I'm in my mind who always thinks of wanting to remove barriers that you have to pay to play that we definitely, when we look at data families in the lower, you know, 50% of income cite as a huge barrier to joining organized sports and movement, just the financial aspect they don't have for, particularly if we're asking the entire family in running medicine to join. You know, and you think of again the example of 300 bucks per just kid per season just to run and now it's not going to work. So long story short, that partnership has flourished.

It gives us value. It allows us, you know, imagine being a running walking group that on day one says, well you better come back next week with a really expensive pair of shoes or you can't do this. That's not our value. That's not at all who we are. And then you have this partnership that I've estimated, we've estimated over half a million dollars of in kind donations just through these, what we call $20 shoe sales over 10 years. Wow. I mean that, that is, and, and literally this partner says to us, this is, this is the best partnership we have ever had of any group that we worked with. And I feel so thankful that you know, because I don't feel that, I don't know all the time that we bring something to the table.

But I also think that in our entrepreneurship work, every partnership is earned. And there is something, again, not monetary, but there is something that if that partner wants to work with you, that you should feel proud of what you're doing and how you're improving the world. You've earned that right to get something free or to get $20 shoes in this case. So it's a really creative and much more communal way of doing the economics and it allows us with a smile to say we lose money with every one that joins.

What a great story to end with. Anthony, thank you so much for being on the show today. If somebody wants to get a hold of you, they have a question about your work or want to learn more about health equity and how you think about it. What would be the best way for them to do that?

That carrier pigeon Morse code. I, I, I just trails, I know.

Which trails Anthony likes to run on. Yeah, let's see.

My, my gmail for listeners is movement heals 2023 Gmail movement heals 2023gmail.com and you can look up running medicines work on social media. Runningmedicine.org is the website and that will link you also to the native health initiative. Yeah, we'd love to hear from listeners. Maybe there's someone out there that says I want to bring this to my community. Absolutely. Reach out.

Anthony, thank you so much for being on the show today.

My pleasure, Paul. Let's run together very soon.

I look forward to it. So, listeners, let's do we do. Please, if you know somebody who could benefit from this episode, pass it on to them. Let's get the word out about running medicine and the Native health initiative. Check the links if you want to check out the websites. I want to remind you we love listeners, suggested topics and guests. So if you have an idea, go to the AwarePreneurs website and on our contact page, you can submit your idea. Lastly, I just want to say thank you so much for listening.

Please take really good care in these intense times and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.